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Why I Live in IRC (2015)

aaronparecki.com

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Re: Why I Live in IRC (2015)

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. ZNC on Debian (apt install znc) on an Entrywan instance. The freenode debacle impacted a handful of my favorite channels. #tcl is noticably quieter and a couple others are still trying to decide whether they're an official channel or not (this affects #channel vs ##channel naming). I'd bet that the number of active users has dropped but I don't have any emperical evidence. If anyone is considering ZNC, her…

#tcl is now on liberachat although I believe its bridged between. Unless you meant in general. If so, apologies

Yes, the new channel, even with the bridges in tact, is still much quieter. Here's an sample from my client logs:

$ wc -l tcl2023* | awk '{s+=$1} END {print s/NR}' 116.333

$ wc -l tcl2020* | awk '{s+=$1} END {print s/NR}' 314.556

Less than half the activity before/after according to this non-scientific analysis (my client wasn't always connected and it looks like the logfiles contain topic/names and other output).

Re: Why I Live in IRC (2015)

#112
post #67
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I the only one who thinks that many of the listed gripes are core features? > TOO many bots log entire channels out to public html sites. Fair enough. This would be a likely problem with any non-private chat system. > It won't preview gifs Why would I want my client to preload arbitrary third-party supplied fourth-party content? No thank you. > No syncing without running an eggdrop or some tty somewhere running it…

> Fair enough. This would be a likely problem with any non-private chat system. No, because most non-private chat systems don't oblige anyone who wants to participate seriously to run a log bot. Of course any chat could be being logged, but most people don't bother if you don't give them a reason to. > Why would I want my client to preload arbitrary third-party supplied fourth-party content? The whole point of being…

You pretty much covered all of my points.

Also, impersonating a user is against Discord TOS. It's only if the user is actively portraying themselves as that user to others and not just a nickname switch and being goofy, IIRC.

Personally I think you should get nuked for a day minimum for doing it at all but whatever. Someone did it as me last year and was actually having conversationg an entire day or two before I saw them doing it and it confused the HELL out of me until I realized it.

I used to have a 2 or 3 character nick on Efnet + Freenode, prob others. I'm sure thats long taken by someone else now unless the nickserv never expires them.

Re: Why I Live in IRC (2015)

#113
post #90
post #14

I was an ircop on efnet for like half my childhood until they figured out I wasn't 18 and desynced my server. I just could never go back to IRC. I stopped using it probably 15 years ago or more after using it for 20ish years. Got my first job on it, learned linux and networking through it, definitely propelled my career. TOO many bots log entire channels out to public html sites. This is prevalent in everything like…

Which server?

That's super identifying of a nickname I used when i was 8-16 that would have IRC logs all over the internet so I won't be passing that on, sorry. God knows what stupid shit I said back then. I still use the domains from back then.

Re: Why I Live in IRC (2015)

#114
post #91
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was an op when I was under 18, stopped using IRC 15+ years ago, and used it in total for probably 15-20 years. I'm 39 and started at .. Idk, probably 8-9. I think I was an op from 12-16 maybe 17. A lot of ops were people who synced (peered) their stable and moderated servers on good connections with efnet. Like, OC1-3 connections. My friends and I were pretty much apprentice network engineers to a family member who…

There really wasn't an OC1 in use anywhere, OC3s were for sure.

Yeah I was thinking that when I saw the speed, I remember wanting OC1 at my house but I couldn't even afford shotgun dsl or whatever it was back then, maybe it was shotgun t1s.

HPB (high ping bitch in counterstrike 1.6) :(

Re: Why I Live in IRC (2015)

#115
post #82
post #14

I was an ircop on efnet for like half my childhood until they figured out I wasn't 18 and desynced my server. I just could never go back to IRC. I stopped using it probably 15 years ago or more after using it for 20ish years. Got my first job on it, learned linux and networking through it, definitely propelled my career. TOO many bots log entire channels out to public html sites. This is prevalent in everything like…

> you probably still have to do some xdcc crap to send a file At least you don't have to re-learn how to do it when the UI changes, when the commercial sponsorship changes, when the advertising changes, or when they announce they've been hacked and your data is on the "darkweb" (probably another IRC network). !xdcc list

I guarantee you I don't know a single xdcc command anymore without looking them up and I used them for 15 years, whereas I could probably leave discord for 5-15 years and still try to right click someone and drag a file over to their name.

A new user doesn't know to type xdcc help, etc. They have to google how to send IRC files, blahblah. And everyone will be on a different client so maybe yours has an XDCC context menu button but theirs doesn't, etc.

Re: Why I Live in IRC (2015)

#116
post #78
post #14

I was an ircop on efnet for like half my childhood until they figured out I wasn't 18 and desynced my server. I just could never go back to IRC. I stopped using it probably 15 years ago or more after using it for 20ish years. Got my first job on it, learned linux and networking through it, definitely propelled my career. TOO many bots log entire channels out to public html sites. This is prevalent in everything like…

> TOO many bots log entire channels out to public html sites These sites exist? Examples?

Yes look up any $server and #chat_room and you'll probably find one that has an almost elasticsearch quality search feature where you can specifically pick a user and see everything they've said and run sentiment values on it, etc. Sometimes they're not THAT public but someone is usually keeping them, you can even do it in your IRC client with a rolling txt log so its accessible to non-teceh users.

If you want a crazy trip look up irc logs on 9/11, and keep in mind most of the people on irc on 9/11 were middled aged in the 2000s and.. extremely unpleasant. Incredible amounts of anti-muslim, jew stuff, every single channel was ranting about muslims and turning iraq into glass.

These are just examples, you have the full text logs so I'm sure people are running them through AI and everything else now.

https://ircstats.net/ https://ircstats.net/LA/

9/11 example https://www.smogon.com/forums/threads/9-11-irc-10-years-late...

Re: Why I Live in IRC (2015)

#117
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I the only one who thinks that many of the listed gripes are core features? > TOO many bots log entire channels out to public html sites. Fair enough. This would be a likely problem with any non-private chat system. > It won't preview gifs Why would I want my client to preload arbitrary third-party supplied fourth-party content? No thank you. > No syncing without running an eggdrop or some tty somewhere running it…

>Why would I want my client to preload arbitrary third-party supplied fourth-party content? No thank you. I would describe it as a funny picture that moves

I would describe it as an information leak vector.

Re: Why I Live in IRC (2015)

#118
post #54

What I like about irc is that the x-topic "communities" are one big channel, centralized. Compare that with Discord where you join a server/guild and you are presented with 10 or more channels and you have to take a guess into what the normal/off-topic/on-topic/general channel is. But irc is also very strange, I wouldn't be surprised if I had been chatting with a swarm of bots all these years.

Discord servers are run by those people that really like putting every thing into neat, well-defined little boxes. Their solution to too many channels is to add even more channels, and maybe some inane automation and bot system so the complexity of the real world is contained and perfectly categorised in their kingdom.

Utter lunatics.

Re: Why I Live in IRC (2015)

#119
post #103
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its because Matrix is just that bad.

Would you elaborate? What makes it bad?

The most used client, Element, is somehow worse that the Discord electron client, believe it or not. My experience of joining Matrix channels is through sluggish and clunky UI that makes me want to tear my hair out.

I would reconsider if there was a half-decent TUI client that doesn't have 250ms latency to send a bloody plaintext message on a top-shelf Linux workstation. Is it that hard to make it run as smooth as mIRC did on my old Pentium II?

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